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Thread: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat Reply to Thread
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07-14-2018 01:45 PM
cf100
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

that sucks, she was a good looking bird!
07-14-2018 01:42 PM
CF105
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Shouldn’t have been tail heavy, I was quite paranoid about that when I balanced it. Not impossible though. Maybe I wasn’t aggressive enough on the sticks? There was lots of throw. Maybe the incidence was off?

I’ll likely build a replacement, once I get my current build off the table.
07-14-2018 01:32 PM
Max
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Awww man that is terrible! Why could you not get the nose down? Was it tail heavy?? Not enough throw on the elevator??
07-14-2018 01:19 PM
CF105
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Well that didn’t go so well...

Took the Wildcat to the field today for its test flight. Had a few minor last minute issues to work out.

Got her powered up and did some taxiing. Ground handling was far better than I expected. Took a deep breath and taxied to the end of the runway. Throttled up slowly; no hint of any desire to pull left. Pleasant surprise!

She broke ground earlier than I expected, and climbed steeply. In fact she continued to pitch nose up even as I moved the stick forward. The plane lost airspeed, stalled and dropped a wing. She was way too low to recover, and piled in nose first. The airframe failed at the landing gear bulkhead (the glue joints failed. The bulkhead is actually undamaged), and the tail section. The impact was sufficient to rupture one of the fully-charged 6S5000 battery packs. It burst into flames.

I’m still at the field so have yet to check all the parts, but at first look, the ESC is toast (cooked in the battery fire). The four flight packs are damaged. One is completely consumed and the others were at least a bit cooked by the fire, even though they didn’t ignite. I’m treating them as unsafe. The motor may be damaged as well; it turns, but feels a bit rough. The fibreglass cowl May be repairable. The landing gear are damaged but looks like an easy fix. The air cylinder was punctured by something, so will have to be replaced.

Fortunately the stuff that’s hardest to replace is intact or easily fixed. The electronics should be fine, but I’ll test them later.
06-13-2018 09:11 AM
Terry Gauvin
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Looking good Kevin.
06-13-2018 08:58 AM
CF105
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Warbirds event in Truro at the end of the month! The Wildcat is pretty much ready to go now. However I'll wait until after the event to do the maiden. Unless I manage to convince someone more skilled than me to do it there

The pics below were taken at the end of April, and I've done a bit more work on her since then.

Finally got her on the balancer this past weekend. Found that if I put the receiver batteries just behind the landing gear bulkhead, she's almost perfectly balanced! Might need a 1/2 ounce or so in the tail. There's something to be said for going electric: stuffing 4 6S packs as far forward as possible (on the firewall in this case!) eliminates the need for deadweight ballast

Prop hub and wheel covers are 3D printed ABS. Will have to do some testing, but the hub should be airworthy.
02-10-2018 11:12 AM
RAMJET
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

nice job Kevin , looks great. once you get her sorted it's going to be a head turner .




Quote:
Originally Posted by CF105 View Post
Edging ever closer. Finished applying the decals (roundels & fin flash from Callie, squadron code I did myself). I've been unable to find any photos of this actual aircraft (JV375), but there are some pics & models of JV377. I figure there's a good chance the markings were applied in a similar fashion.

Still to do:

- Install tail servos, receiver & receiver batteries.
- Setup pull-pull cables for rudder
- Setup control rods for elevator & tail wheel
- Epoxy gear doors to landing gear
- Secure Lt. Cdr. Cosh in his cockpit
- Secure canopy
- Balance!
- Setup control throws on the TX
02-09-2018 02:41 PM
CF105
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Geez! Doesn't seem like it's been that long since my last update. Let's see:

Got the repaired air piston assembly back from Robart. after a lot of fiddling the gear are working again. It's a bit distressing to watch the "up" sequence. The assembly looks like it's slowly struggling to lift the wheels up during the first phase. Then once they're up to the point that they need to shift inward to the fuselage... they slam in (no gravity to fight at this point). From what I've read this is pretty much how they work. Well, at least they function. And lowering the gear never seems to be an issue (and is far gentler). So worst case scenario in flight is they could stall partway up... but even then they will still lower & lock.

With that out of the way I went back to getting the rudder cables setup to my liking. First couple of tries were just too slack. Finally got things nice & tight... but there was still play in the rudder! Eventually I tracked that down to the clevises on the rudder itself. The pins were too short to reach & lock the other clevis arm. That was allowing the clevis to act as a bit of a spring on the cable. Those clevises got replaced with some Robart ones, with a longer socket head screw substituted to ensure everything was locked down solid, yet easy to maintain. Gotta say I was surprised to see a regular old slot-headed screw in the clevis package!.

From there I tackled the slipping tail wheel. It was a simple fix: remove the wheel & steering shaft, grind a couple of flat spots & reassemble. Had to remove the fairing though, which pretty well trashed it. Making a replacement is easy... I just have a thing against "rework".

At this point the plane is pretty much ready to be balanced. I'm kinda putting that off so I can work on a couple of other projects, like the Defiant I started last winter.

The other big project is 3D printing. Finally getting my feet wet with the modelling software, and have just successfully printed my first self-designed part: a scale Curtiss Electric prop hub for my Wildcat. The one shown uses PLA material, and is for static use only. I do plan to try it with some stronger materials and test the results.
10-28-2017 11:12 AM
CF105
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Thanks for the offer, Terry. The fix isn’t all that difficult, I’ve just grown exasperated by the “death by a thousand cuts” that this has evolved into.

Sometimes we have to learn the hard way...
10-27-2017 08:56 PM
Terry Gauvin
Re: Jerry Bates F4F Wildcat

Never pay someone to do something who is in a hurry
(dozen projects, leaving town, etc, etc, etc, ) do to something you can do better yourself at a leisurely pace with double the quality. Let me know if I can help.

Terry
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